Israel Broadens Bombing in Gaza to Civilian Sites

Source: New York Times

GAZA — Israel expanded its four-day assault on Gaza on Saturday, broadening its airstrikes from military targets to the civilian political infrastructure, leveling the headquarters here of the Hamas prime minister and striking police and security buildings.

Hamas continued to fire rockets at Israel, including a pair intended for the city of Tel Aviv. One landed harmlessly, probably at sea; the other was thwarted in midair by Israel.

In Cairo, the leaders of Hamas, Turkey and Qatar gathered to try to broker a truce. Hamas officials were in indirect contact with Israel through Egyptian intelligence intermediaries, an official of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood said.

The talks were reported to be deadlocked on Saturday evening, while continued attacks in Gaza and Israel, and Israeli preparations for a possible ground invasion, suggested that neither side was ready to end the fight.

3. Amy Goodman interviews Noam Chomsky on Gaza-

The genocide that is taking place in Gaza is a unspoken horror. We must stop this assault.
snip;
AMY GOODMAN: Well, on Sunday, I spoke about the situation in Gaza with the world-renowned political dissident, linguist, author, MIT professor, Noam Chomsky. He was speaking in Princeton at the 32nd anniversary of the Coalition of Peace Action. Noam Chomsky recently returned from his first visit to Gaza, which he entered from the Egyptian side of the Rafah Crossing as a member of an academic delegation attending a conference at Gaza’s Islamic University. This is Noam Chomsky talking about his experience there.

NOAM CHOMSKY: It’s kind of amazing and inspiring to see people managing somehow to survive in—as essentially caged animals and subject to constant, random, sadistic punishment only to humiliate them, no pretext. They’re—Israel and the United States keep them alive, basically. They don’t want them to starve to death. But the life is set up so that you can’t have a dignified, decent life. In fact, one of the words you hear most often is "dignity." They would like to have dignified lives. And the standard Israeli position is they shouldn’t raise their heads. And it’s a pressure cooker, could blow up. You know, people can’t live like that forever.

AMY GOODMAN: You described it in a piece you wrote as an "open-air prison."

NOAM CHOMSKY: It’s an open-air prison. As soon as you—you know, we’ve all been in jail for civil disobedience and so on. The overwhelming feeling everyone gets is somebody else is in total control of you. There’s an arbitrary authority who can control anything you do. Stand up, sit down, you know, find something to eat, go to the bathroom—whatever it may be, they all determine it; you can’t do anything. Now that’s basically what it’s like living there. And, you know, there’s—people find ways to adapt, but it’s just a constant—it’s constant subjugation to an external force, which has no purpose except to humiliate you. Of course, they have pretexts—everybody has pretexts—but they don’t make any sense.

7. Genocide?

29. Stop U.S., EU support for Israeli genocide

The brutal Israeli aggression and airstrikes on Gaza continue and the helpless Palestinians have no hope of international intervention. The U.N. Security Council has called for a halt to the violence but is reluctant to take immediate action. The U.S. and EU policy of double standards continues to condemn Hamas as an obstacle to peace for its refusal to accept Israeli occupation.

The Israeli attack on Gaza is far from that state’s first act of aggression. It has always been a nation of assassins throughout history.

Noam Chomsky in his recent visit to Gaza described it as hell. Jewish bloggers and prominent human rights activists have denounced Israeli brutality in Gaza, but words are meaningless and do nothing to stop the violence. When all is said and done, Israel continues to have the support of the United States and the European Union.

The support of the West is what emboldens Israeli occupiers to continue their apartheid rule. The myth that has been told in the West to justify the Israeli occupation of Palestine is that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and that the Palestinians are terrorists and the Arabs are threatening neighbors. These claims are far from the truth: Syria is a defanged state, Egypt and Jordan have peace treaties with Israel and Lebanon is at the mercy of Israeli attacks.

32. You speak with such conviction. Sorry, I trust the views of Chomsky, who has been studying

33. I could care less what that idiot says about Israel

there is no genocide going on, genocide is what Mr. Hitler tried to do to the Jews during WWII.
Israel is not trying to exterminate the Palestinians, they're trying to eliminate the terrorists who are constantly attacking them with rocket fire.

And I speak from my wife's experience who is Jewish, has family in Tel Aviv, and spent time in the IDF in the early 70's.

35. I am arguing objectivly

to claim that Israel is conducting genocide against the Palestinians is pure bullshit and offensive as all hell, Chomsky is a fucking idiot to even claim that.
Genocide is what the Nazi's attempted to do to the Jews, genocide is what was going on in Africa.
Unfuckingreal that someone would hate Israel so much that they would tell such a LIE and people would actually believe it.

37. For the record...

...I don't think the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is analogous to the Holocaust. However, let us look at the definition of genocide per The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide as adopted by the United Nations in 1951.

"...any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
— Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2"
http://www.hrweb.org/legal/genocide.html

a) and b) are somewhat arguable. The Israeli government will claim that it's reprisals are aimed at those attacking Jewish citizens. But this campaign is increasingly showing that they are not aiming with that much discretion.

c) and d) Are largely inarguable. Palestinian(as well as Israeli Arab) population is a common subject of debate among right wing Israeli politicians and media heads(spoiler alert: they think it's too high). For decades there have been measures to curb it. Food restrictions on Palestinians is one such measure that has no moral justification, whatsoever. The restrictions on living space is another. Lack of adequate civil infrastructure is another(power/water/sewage/hospitals ect). The Palestinian territories are under the control of the Israeli government so yes, they are responsible for infrastructure which they have neglected for decades. Furthermore, racist restrictions social advancement including(but not limited to) limited access to employment, education, intermarriage, ability to buy property and lack of representation in government all contribute to the overall effort to keep Arabs out of Israeli society and to keep them from starting too many families. All of this has persisted for decades.

No, this is not Nazi Germany. It is more analogous to Apartheid South Africa. Like South Africa, the right wing(In both Israel and the USA) see no problem with these abuses and point to the violent actions of a minority of one ethnic group as a justification to take punitive measures against all of its members. Like South Africa, I believe that attitudes will eventually change and this position will become yet another black eye for Republicans in history, as well as the global conservative movement.

43. Chomsky is an idiot IMO

if he is claiming that Israel is committing genocide.
Israel did not ask to be constantly attacked and terrorized by it's neighbors, if the Arab states thought that they could eliminate Israel tomorrow, they wouldn't hesitate one second and they WOULD commit genocide.
Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran have all vowed to destroy Israel, the only reason they haven't tried yet is because Israel is very strong and has the backing of the US.

I have said several that both sides need to sit down and work out a just and equitable peace treaty that would benefit the region, however, Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah have no desire to do so, at least, not in any terms that Israel can accept.

I and my lovely wife will always support and defend Israel and they're right to retaliate against terror and aggression.

47. Then you have a different definition of genocide than the legal one. /nt

53. I lived under apartheid in So. Africa for two years , the similarities are frightening.

No, this is not Nazi Germany. It is more analogous to Apartheid South Africa. Like South Africa, the right wing(In both Israel and the USA) see no problem with these abuses and point to the violent actions of a minority of one ethnic group as a justification to take punitive measures against all of its members. Like South Africa, I believe that attitudes will eventually change and this position will become yet another black eye for Republicans in history, as well as the global conservative movement.

snip: ----------------------------
-- Because of the unconditional support of the entire political class in the US, from the White House to Congress, including both Parties, incoming and outgoing elected officials and all the principle print and electronic mass media, the Israeli Government feels no compunction in publicly proclaiming a detailed and graphic account of its policy of mass extermination of the population of Gaza.

Israel's sustained and comprehensive bombing campaign of every aspect of governance, civic institutions and society is directed toward destroying civilized life in Gaza. Israel's totalitarian vision is driven by the practice of a permanent purge of Arab Palestine informed by Zionism, an ethno-racist ideology, promulgated by the Jewish state and justified, enforced and pursued by its organized backers in the United States.

The facts of Israeli extermination have become known: In the first six days of round the clock terror bombing of major and minor populations centers, the Jewish State has murdered and seriously maimed over 2,500 people, mostly dismembered and burned in the open ovens of missile fire. Scores of children and women have been slaughtered as well as defenseless civilians and officials.

They have sealed off all access to Gaza and declared it a military, free fire zone, while expanding their target to include the entire population of 1.5 millions semi-starved prisoners.

99. you linked to an antisemitic website

81. Genocide requires

that you at least attempt (or intend) to destroy the entire group. Otherwise, if Israel kills a single Palestinian, it has deliberately brought about the death in part of the Palestinian group and has thus committed genocide. Do you see how absurd that is?

Also, you have not actually demonstrated (d) - seeing Palestinian birthrates as a problem does not equate to actually taking steps to curb that, and you have yet to demonstrate that the measures you noted are intended to prevent births.

91. You don't see the correlation?

You don't see the correlation between going on Israeli TV and complaining about Arab birth-rates and the 'problem' of Arabs spreading through Israeli society, and then going to the Knesset to pass racist laws about restricting access to food, property, employment opportunity, education, access to public service and intermarriage?

Yeah, someone here is being absurd. The point of all these laws is to keep the Arab population down and away from the Jewish one.

86. Maybe they wouldn't feel the need to defend themselves

42. I agree with that

"Here's a thought, quit firing rockets into Israel and Israel stops airstrikes."
I agree, and I never argued that they should. Actually, I haven't seen any DUers argue that they should. My argument was about the legal definition of genocide.

These rocket attacks justify a response but none of the abuses I listed. If you were Palestinian living in Israel, you would not be allowed to live with your Jewish wife. Have you ever thought about that?

48. Look

Israel's not perfect, there are things I would like to see changed and maybe if there were peace in the region, things would change, but it's kind of hard to achieve peace when you have terrorist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah whose stated mission is the destruction of Israel.

I've said several times that I truly wish that the leaders would sit down w/o conditions and hammer out a peace deal that would benefit the whole region, but I honestly don't see that happening in my lifetime, it would have to take a cataclysmic event for it to happen.

51. Then at least we have some common ground.

"Israel's not perfect, there are things I would like to see changed and maybe if there were peace in the region, things would change, but it's kind of hard to achieve peace when you have terrorist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah whose stated mission is the destruction of Israel."

I agree with most of what you said except for the bold part, but it is a key difference. Israel can still pass laws right now. It's wrong to hold up the violent actions of a minority as an excuse to delay progress on human rights. In fact, in right wing circles, it is nothing more than a disengenious excuse. They don't want civil rights reform, regardless of violence. It's been done to death by the right wing in history. Notably Black on White violence during the civil rights movement of the United States but(more analogously) also during SA's Apartheid reform with Black rebel violence on White South Africans.

44. Gaza is a modern day concentration camp

Israel is no longer a friend of this American.

If Israel treated the Palestinians with respect and let them live freely there would be no missiles from Gaza. People of Gaza are just trying to protect themselves and break free of the concentration camp.

49. Of course they do

They want to become free from the concentration camp that is Gaza and the only way to do that is to defeat Israel. Eventually they will. Eventually Israel will piss off all of its American friends (like me) and it will be a little tiny minority in the ME and will be gone. However, if Israel really wanted peace, we could help them. But it may be too late. It is for me. Israel is no longer my friend.

56. More open is the keyword

Doesn't matter. These people have been run off their lands and forced into the Gaza concentration camp. They have been fighting against the forced concentration. But have not had any help from anyone outside. They are now up against the wall. Give them back their land and let them have some dignity in their lives and there will be more peace.

Israel, on this course, is doomed as they will lose their friends here in the US. Many people are sick and tired of the problems Israel has created. This may be the proverbial straw. I dare say even Obama is getting sick of it.

64. Why are you suprised?

"We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population." Israel Koenig, "The Koenig Memorandum"

David Ben Gurion (the first Israeli Prime Minister): "If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti - Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault ? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?" Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp121.

63. Feeling the Jewish love?

"The Palestinians" would be crushed like grasshoppers ... heads smashed against the boulders and walls." " Isreali Prime Minister (at the time) in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988

First, the quote being made is false; it's constructed out of two separate and unrelated statements by Yitzhak Shamir (granted, both statements are ugly, but still.) Second, that sentiment seems to be getting attributed to Jews as a whole, by the remark, "feeling hte jewish love?"

A randomly-selected Jury of DU members completed their review of this post at Sat Nov 17, 2012, 09:38 PM, and voted 3-3 to keep it.

76. Oh

Are not the people in Gaza concentrated and controlled and subject to an overwhelming force? Why yes, they are. It is most unfortunate that what the Israelis are doing is quite similar to one of the most atrocious things their kin suffered through.

77. It is against DU rules to compare Jews to Nazis,

79. Not what I did

Awful that you would try to twist facts in that way. Is, or is not Gaza similar to a concentration camp? I see it that way. You are free to make a case that it is not. Are they concentrated and controlled by an overwhelming force, or not?

62. Again, enough said.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, quoted in Associated Press, November 16, 2000: "If we thought that instead of 200 Palestinian fatalities, 2,000 dead would put an end to the fighting at a stroke, we would use much more force...."

66. Chomsky didn't claim that. The poster did.

I generally disagree with your misguided sentiments, but I agree genocide is not apt to describe what is going on. War crimes, crimes against humanity, apartheid and ethnic cleansing are the relevant terms.

61. Enough said.

"We Jews, we are the destroyers and will remain the destroyers. Nothing you can do will meet our demands and needs. We will forever destroy because we want a world of our own." (You Gentiles, by Jewish Author Maurice Samuels, p. 155).

112. I want to modify my previous response to your post.

Your quotation made me curious and I had never heard of the author, so I did a little googling and tracked down a PDF of the book you quoted from, You Gentiles by Maurice Samuels. The first pages intrigued me so much that without intending to, I read the whole book from beginning to end almost in one sitting.

His thesis is that there is a fundamental difference between Jews and gentiles that is NOT "cultural" but inherent, based on a combination of history, world-view and genetics. He doesn't try to get into the issue of causation, but bases his assertions on observation and insight.

I was blown away by his chutzpah in taking on the stereotypes head-on, but sympathetically and from a Jewish POV. I can't recall reading anything like it before, and when you consider that he was writing in 1924, and was acutely aware of the resurgence of anti-Semitism in Germany, his directness and courage (not to mention his insight) seem almost supernatural. Speaking as an assimilated but self-affirming Jew, as the author was also, I can say there were only a few places where he got it wrong, but they are insignificant compared with his accuracy in other areas.

The passage you quoted sounds more anti-Semitic or "self-hating" than it really is because of where you cut it off. It's the closing paragraph of the chapter called "We, the Destroyers" which focuses on the Jews in their role as revolutionaries and iconoclasts (those dirty commies!), in other words, specifically as destroyers of the Establishment.

We Jews, we, the destroyers, will remain the destroyers for ever. Nothing that you will do will meet our needs and demands. We will for ever destroy because we need a world of our own, a God-world, which it is not in your nature to build. Beyond all temporary alliances with this or that faction lies the ultimate split in nature and destiny, the enmity between the Game and God. But those of us who fail to understand that truth will always be found in alliance with your rebellious factions, until disillusionment comes. The wretched fate which scattered us through your midst has thrust this unwelcome role upon us.

70. +1

87. Those talking points are tired and no longer

justify the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. I DO NOT want my country
held hostage and complicit in this deplorable aggression. It must end. The world
is not going to tollerate it any longer.

39. Chomsky is to the "Left" what Rush Limbaugh is to the "Right". nt

58. Chomsky and Limbaugh names should not be put into the same sentence.

Chomsky represents the truth for human good, Limbaugh is a lying Bloviator, who does nothing for the human good, only lies and distorts the truth for money. His overlords are the extreme right wing--he is the epitome of hate radio.

74. Hamas will stop rockets when

The Israeli government could end the rocket attacks on Sderot in a heartbeat if they evacuate Jews from Tel Aviv,Haifa,Jerusalem,Beer Sheba,Eilat ,Accre,Sefad,Netanya,
Ra anana,Herzlya,Sheba Farms,Golan,Ramat Aviv,Afulla,Ramle,Gush Etzion,Ariel,Maale Adummim,Ashkelon,Bat Yam,Dimona,Rehovot,Carmel,Lod and Hebron...

The very next day there will be no rockets from Hamas...I guarantee it !

5. That is going way too far

I mean, it's clear that - appallingly - half of this board seems to cheer whenever Israelis die or are attacked, but seriously? The Jews are among the most oppressed people on earth, and are surrounded by half a dozen countries ready to kill them for simply being a different religion then they are.

9. I do not think the Jewish people are exactly oppressed. Some bigots have negative stereotypes,

and dislike or hatred, of who they think the Jewish people are. But I don't see the oppression now. In Nazi Germany, 70 years ago....most certainly. In many parts of Russia even up until the end of the 20th century, yes. But the Jewish people are NOT victims AS A RACE any longer.

Wikipedia: Oppression is the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner. It can also be defined as an act or instance of oppressing, the state of being oppressed, and the feeling of being heavily burdened, mentally or physically, by troubles, adverse conditions, and anxiety.

They are definitely disliked by their neighbors. And they obviously dislike their neighbors.

If your neighbor kills your dog, and you go over and massacre his family, then their extended family members torch your house, then your family poisons the city water supply....

the world is getting sick of this ridiculous, two-thousand-plus year old Hatfields & McCoys crap.

10. I

would support your claims but the reports seem unclear now if one side is calling for a truce to mediate but the other side just refuses. Why don't Israel talk to them and get concessions from Hamas to stop firing missiles in Israel? This is unclear? Isn't the point, to get them to cease firing on Israel? And if there is a violation, Israel can always continue the invasion.

21. There is indeed a double standard here, but it's not what you probably think

I'm not letting Hamas off the hook for violence either, but how many Israeli civilians have been killed by Hamas rocket attacks? Israel has the upper hand in terms of geography, funding, eeaources, and military might. It would be nice if they could act with greater discretion or, gosh I don't know, make a sincere effort at a diomatic solution before blowing up a dozen kids and wondering why the Palestinians don't like it.

94. So if a member of Hamas is in a city, Israel can bomb the shit out of that city with impunity?

What are the limits to that rule? Does the presence of one member of Hamas turn a civilian city block into a legitimate military target? What if he's on a bus with 40 school kids? Are they considered acceptable losses?

109. When has Israel targeted a school bus?

Those are things the Palestinians do. That and send their children strapped with explosives into Israeli pizza joints filled with big bad teenagers. What utter cowards. Hamas deliberately puts its rocket launchers in civilian housing and celebrates when it gets hit because then they can accuse the Israelis of "targeting civilians".

116. The reason any Palestinian children have been killed is because of the Palestinians.

They put their rocket launchers in residential areas next to schools and hospitals. They hope for civilian deaths so they can parade the bloody bodies around for the world to see showing how bad the Israeli'/s are. Everyone knows their game.

117. And the reason that Israealis are killed is because of Israelis

More specifically, because of oppressive Israeli policies and forcible settlement of Gaza.
See how it works? It's not as simple as blaming the Palestinians, no matter how convenient that would be for some people.

Israel can't claim any sort of moral superiority if it knowingly bombs civilian targets, even if some asshole with a rocket launcher has holed up in the basement. You'd think that the dominant military power in the region, backed financially and militarily by the world's super-power, could come up with a better solution than killing children while bombing the shit out of a residential area.

By your logic, if a gunman takes refuge in a school and fires out through the windows, the cops are wholly justified in killing all of the children in order to stop the gunman.

118. If a group in Mexico started firing in rockets on San Diego what would the U.S. do?

Ask for negotiations? I don't think so. The civilians in Gaza support Hamas and support their attacks on Israel. So they have to live (or die) with it. Thank goodness people like you were not around in WW II. It would still be going on if you were.

119. Why do people keep using that ridiculous and invalid analogy?

If the US had forcibly relocated Mexican residents, and if the US had oppressed the entirety of the Mexican population for decades, and if the US enjoyed the unflinching protection of a third-party superpower, and if the Mexican rockets in question were obsolete and only as accurate as the shooter's best guess, then maybe your analogy would make any sense at all.

As it is, however, the analogy is entirely meaningless. So what was your point again?

68. “May your children die, you dogs”: As Gaza burns, Israelis bay for blood in streets of Tel Aviv

113. Please don't make it sound like ALL the Israelis were "baying for blood."

I have watched that video several times, emailed it to a friend and posted a link to it on another discussion board. The howling lynch mob--and I agree they are despicable--was on ONE side of the street. On the other side was a counter-demonstration where they were chanting, "the people demand a cease-fire!"

That's who the warmongers were cursing and why they were cursing them. They weren't yelling "May your children die, you dogs!" at the Palestinians. They were cursing their left-wing Israeli counterparts.

18. Thank you. Exactly right. nt

20. It's Not a Double Standard

it's more about the fact Bibi and other hawks in Israel can't be taken seriously regarding a long term peace deal. many Israeli's want long term peace; their leadership ain't getting it done. it appears the leadership wants terminal war.

59. I think that applies to both sides actually

Maybe more accurately , the many "sides" involved in this mess. There seems to be a fair share of radicals on all sides that are not willing to compromise. I find a lot of the things Israel has done to be disturbing but, on the other hand they are pretty much in a constant state of crisis from just about everyone they share the area with. What I find frustrating about this thread and DU in general on this issue is that instead of sharing updates and information most of what goes on is just bickering about which side is right or wrong when the truth really is somewhere in the middle.

26. Perhaps they've tried.

The big news one day was that Jabari was killed hours after receiving a truce proposal. Essentially a proposal that said, "You stop it and we'll stop it."

What a lot of people heard was that Jabari was killed after agreeing to a truce proposal.

Personally, if hours after saying, "If you stop it, I'll stop it" I haven't heard an answer and it hasn't stopped, I assume that the guy involved is powerless and his loss unimportant or he doesn't want to stop it.

They want to live lives of dignity and honor. In some cases, that dignity and honor involves death, theirs or others'.

27. "assume that the guy involved is powerless and his loss unimportant or he doesn't want to stop it."

The first part of this quote is indicative of Right Wing attitudes towards Palestinians as a whole.

powerless=unimportant
Who cares what happens to them?

I don't think everyone belonging to one ethnic group should suffer because some of their members have committed violent crimes. Most Palestinians are as powerless do anything about the Israelis bombing them as they are to do anything about other Palestinians firing rockets.

13. And

come on guy, there has been genocide and ethnic cleansing through out the history of the World. Most civilizations have got drunk with power. Does Israel know how to use their military power with prudence? So what is Netanyahu's goal here? The fact Hamas is crying uncle,wouldn't it be better for Netanyahu to get concessions in writing with witnesses? The mere fact they are crying Uncle, mean you won.

15. I'm relieved it was a 6-0 vote, at least. (nt)

24. Half this board seems to cheer whenever Israelis die or attacked? Links to any of this?

I've been at DU for a long time, and I've never seen anything at all like that. Short of links showing throngs of DUers cheering Israelis dying, I'm calling bullshit on that...

While the post you replied to was nasty and deserved to be hidden, yr response is both incorrect and appears to be pushing a meme that Arabs are raving antisemites. While Jews have been victims of genocide and oppression over the centuries, what yr talking about when you say 'surrounded by half a dozen countries...' is Israel, and Israelis aren't oppressed at all. Israel is by far the stronger party in the conflict,...

As for yr claim that there's half a dozen countries surrounding Israel ready to kill them for simply being a different religion, which countries would those be? Most of Israel's neighbours have peace treaties with Israel, and most others who haven't have made it clear that their relations with Israel will normalise when Israel ends the occupation of the Palestinians. So how does that get twisted into wanting to kill people because they're a different religion?

83. How to you get "most"

Conting only those countries with a shared border, you have 2/4 (didn't count the Palestinians, because a) it's not a peace treaty, b) they're not a country, c) do you count them as 1 or 2 entities?). Expanding the circle to more distant "neighbors", that ration goes down.

84. Yr right. Two out of four isn't most...

Mine was a minor miscalculation. Not nearly as bad as claiming half of DU seems to cheer every time Israel gets attacked, or saying that Israel's surrounded by half a dozen countries that want to kill Israelis for being a different religion. Those two are actually totally untrue and the latter is feeding into some sort of anti-Arab thing that I've seen happening.

93. You're not doing a great job of proving him wrong, glacierbay

For one, you skipped over Israel's 1957 invasion of Egypt. Which tells me either you didn't know about it (in which case you're hardly qualified as 'informed') or you deliberately airbrushed it out of the narrative (which makes you disingenuous.)

1948: Ever heard the phrase, "it takes two to tango?" The Arab states attacked Israel, yes. Was it just some random, "RARGHBLARGLEWEHATEJEWSBECAUSEARABSALLHATEJEWSRARGHBLARGLE!" deal as is very often asserted? No; Israel wasn't sitting around minding its own business, its paramilitary forces were engaging in assaults against Arabs both within the "Jewish"-designated areas of the Partition plan, and against the northern "Arab" sector. That is, Israeli forces were already conducting the sort of ethnic cleansing the world had seen just the year before, during the India / Pakistan partition (incidentally, both plans concocted by the British...)

1967: Saying "The Arabs attacked!" requires Arabs to have been flying Israeli planes, and the Israelis to have been in Egyptian tanks. Now, if you want to argue that Egypt has a sovereign right to launch preemptive strikes when it feels like it, go ahead; I just hope you don't bitch about George W. Bush doing the same thing thirty-six years later. Also, read up on the part the Soviets played in this one, it's rather fascinating to realize just how much of the "Arab-Israeli" conflict is actually stemming from the superpowers seeking dominion over the Suez canal! (in fact both the US and USSR stepped in in 1957 to keep the canal out of the hands of "lesser powers" - France and great britain, by Israeli proxy)

1967 sets the stage for the next two you bring up; the "War of Attrition" and the 1973 war. How does it do so? Well in 1967, Israel captured the Sinai and Golan Heights, correct? Both the wars that followed, were attempts to reclaim that territory. In the War of Attrition, the Egyptians were shelling Israeli forces in the Sinai... which was still Egyptian territory. That's not "starting a war on Israel," that's "fighting an occupying force." In 1973, Egypt and Syria (or formally, the United Arab Republic) launched offensives to try to reclaim the Sinai and Golan Heights. Again... attacking an occupying force.

Imagine that... Wars are slightly complicated things!

Also, your use of "The Arab nations." You know that there are actual individual nations there, right? Only a relatively small number of which have actually been involved in war with Israel?

57. pretty much. Israel is the bully with the HUGE military and the backing of the USA against tiny

Gaza. supporting Israel is in fact supporting the worst right wing fascism. i can't imagine what deranged cognitive dissonance must be going on in the heads of those who fancy themselves as liberals who support this hideous government.

110. I agree that the "Hitler"

comparison is way overboard. The point that many people confuse, however, is that a dislike of Israeli politicians and their government is NOT anti-Semitic. The Likud does not represent Judaism, although they play the "anti-Semitic" card when their anti-Palestinian policies are attacked. They hide behind their religion in order to justify their hateful neoconservative agenda, much like the American Christian neocons.

Until a more progressive Liberal and caring government is established in Israel, the neoconservative idiots now in power will never agree to an amicable settlement or the establishment of a Palestinian State. Netenyahu is the ideological soul-mate of Donald Rumsfeld and the PNAC crowd, and they are accomplishing their right-wing agenda by playing on the sympathies of the US government to get funding for their self-imposed problems.

Yes Israel has a right to defend themselves, but they must also take responsibility for inciting the Palestinian people to violence by denying them basic human rights and dignity.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the Jewish religion, and everything to do with right-wing neoconservatism, and is aided and abetted by the American Republican "Christian" Party.

85. Deliberate bombing of civilian sites can be considered a war crime

putting the Israeli government on the same moral ground as Hamas. I don't see how that buys them more security or the moral high ground.

This whole crisis is a real test for Morsi and how he balances relations with Israel and keeping the Brotherhood happy. Him and the other leaders must condemn Hamas' actions firing rockets into Israel.

Of course the real long term solution is Israel ceding its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and Hamas, well ceasing to be altogether - either that or accepting reality that Israel has the right to exist. So, in reality the conflict will continue on in perpetuity.

88. Why are we always dragged into the discussion just because of spoken word?

So what, Obama pays lip service to AIPAC and says we support Israel's right to defend themselves.

We are no more responsible for Israel killing a civilian with donated or purchased weapons than Ford is if I wipe out a family of 6 because I drank too much and got behind the wheel of my GT500.

My real question is, why won't the rest of the Arab world defend the Palestinians? The answer is they think less of them than the Israelis do. I have heard more than one first-generation Saudi and Persian call Palestinians the "dogs" of the Arab world.

My point is that all sides are using the Palestinians as a pawn. The ONLY solution is complete recognition of a Palestinian State. I would like to hear one argument against it.

After that, if the three religions would like to fight over Jerusalem, let them do it. But not with my tax dollars.

An overnight airstrike on two houses belonging to an extended clan in Gaza City killed two children and two adults, and injured 42 people, said Gaza heath official Ashraf al-Kidra.

Shortly after, Israeli aircraft bombarded the remains of the former national security compound in Gaza City. Flying shrapnel killed one child and wounded others living nearby, al-Kidra said. Five farmers were killed in two separate strikes, al-Kidra said, including three who had been identified earlier by Hamas security officials as Islamic Jihad fighters.

Civilian casualties began to shoot up on Sunday, after Israel said it was stepping up attacks on the homes of suspected Hamas activists. After that warning, an Israeli missile flatted a two-story house in a residential area of Gaza City, killing at least 11 civilians, most of them women and children.

At least 11 members of one family, including five women and four children, were killed when Israel bombed a house in Gaza City on Sunday as the five-day-old war claimed more civilian lives with no sign of a let-up in the intense bombardment.

The air strike flattened the home of the Dalou family in the Sheikh Radwan district of Gaza City, causing the biggest death toll in a single incident since the offensive began last Wednesday.

On Monday morning the Israeli defence force appeared to admit the family had been killed by mistake. The Haaretz website quoted the army as saying their house was either incorrectly pinpointed or a missile malfunctioned.

Elsewhere in the city early Monday an air strike levelled two houses belonging to a single family, killing two children and two adults and injuring 42 people, including children, said Gaza heath official Ashraf al-Kidra. Rescue workers were frantically searching for 12 to 15 members of the Azzam family under the rubble. Shortly afterwards, Israeli aircraft bombarded the remains of the former national security compound in Gaza City. Al-Kidra said flying shrapnel killed one child and wounded others living nearby.